Such a bold step in a Paris theatre was almost unheard of. What! try to run a theatre without the regular corps of hired applauders? The thing was incredible. But the leading artists demanded it, and the manager notified his claqueurs that their pay was stopped. That night not a ripple of applause disturbed the monotony of the performance. The public, left to itself, and accustomed to have a gang of paid worthies to start the applause at the right moment, applauded neither Lemaitre nor Dorval, nor any of the other players. "It is evident," said Lemaitre to himself, "that people who admire my acting fear being mistaken for hired claqueurs if they express their enthusiasm. I must arrange that." He therefore quietly caused to be planted a few judicious claqueurs about the house at his own expense, and that night bravos and hand-clappings were bestowed on Lemaitre alone. This suited the actor's notions to a nicety. Not so with the actress, however. "These people have no taste," she thought; "but that can't last." So she arranged privately for a small claque of her own, and that night she also was applauded. But this sort of game was one which the smaller players of the theatre could take a hand in, too. And on the third night, strange to say, there was applause for everything and everybody; all the performers had "ovations" in turn; even the ballet-girls had a share in the general glory so liberally bestowed. "What is the meaning of this?" demanded Lemaitre and Dorval of the manager: "did you not promise that your claque should be discharged?" The manager shrugged his shoulders. "My claque is discharged," said he; "and now there are, I perceive, three claques instead of one--yours, madame's and the whole company's. Nothing could be fairer." It may seem strange that our actor, who dealt so roughly with the critic who suggested bribery, should have condescended to pay men for applause. But custom regulates our sense of honor. The claque is an institution so openly recognized in French theatres that the proudest dramatic or lyric temple in Paris would not know what to do without it. Even the classic Theatre Francais and the frigid Odeon, which are in great part supported by the government, and about which hangs the purest odor of high art, have each a regularly organized claque, which is paid to applaud, and which holds its rehearsals with the same solemnity that the players do, in order to introduce at the proper moment a gust of hand-clapping, a burst of laughter, or cries of "Bravo! bravo!" There is no concealment whatever about their operations. The claqueurs occupy conspicuous seats in every theatre, and it is often quite an entertainment in itself to watch their goings on. The leader gives the signal to begin and the sign to stop; and if any man of his band applauds too idly, that man is openly rebuked, and instructed by vehement gesture to do his duty better.